An Award-Winning 1929 Ford Pickup

Believe it or not, this pick up project started out to be a shop truck for owner builder Dennis Portka’s business. As you can see, things kind of got out of hand. The truck ended up being one of the 2017 Pirelli Great 8 in the Detroit Autorama’s annual Don Ridler Memorial Award competition. Dennis had been here before when he was runner up with his 1934 Ford, in 1985. Five years later, he was at it again when he started this awesome project. Let’s take a walk through the build of this 3,500 hour project.

It may look like a stock bodied Model A, but, actually turned out to be, basically, a coach built vehicle, with every inch touched by the builder’s hand, in one way or another.

The cab was designed to have modern style door jams, latches and weather strips. It was also extended 2 inches for extra leg room, and the rear window was enlarged. The doors and windshield are flush fit, with a handmade windshield frame and visor. Next, the hood is designed to be ridged with its own framework. Before the framework was bent he milled a 1/8-inch groove in the 3/8-inch rod so he could use O-ring material to protect the paint. The end result is a free standing hood with no cowl or grill lacing. A scratch built grill shell has a one piece stainless steel molding over a powder coated steel honey combed mesh insert.

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Hand carved out of wood, the Phoenix emblem was then sent to a foundry, cast out of brass, and chrome plated. The front fenders were redesigned to cover the frame horns with stainless steel nerf bars, acting as skis to protect lower sheet metal damage. On to the rear we find running boards milled from aluminum, and drilled and tapped to bolt to the fenders. Dennis widened stock rear fenders, and then cut them into 11 pieces to perfectly flush fit the pickup box. That box is scratch built and widened sitting higher than stock. The one off bed cover was shop built in aluminum, and the underside mimics the furniture grade wood finish of the bed. Owner machined latch and hood braces and exterior handle put the finishing touches on the unit. The gas tank is owner built with machined hidden brackets. It is noted that Dennis metal finished all the panels without the use of body filler.

After making his own frame, a modified Total Cost Involved Eng. IFS was used, along with a Winters quick-change and Wilwood disc brakes. The rotors are milled with the word “Phoenix”. To this was added a Chevrolet 383ci motor with fuel injection heads and Rochester Tri-power induction. Dennis also made the aluminum air cleaner, and bent his own stainless exhaust with no clamps, by using a high heat O-ring system.

The 700R-4 transmission is shifted by a Gennie shifter while the brake and gas pedals are also one off pieces.

On the inside, the custom dash and moldings house Stewart Warner Wings gauges, and the much modified Wheel Shop steering wheel sits atop a machined column. The decorative “Phoenix” panels in the doors came from two wood carved female pieces. A male mold was made from each and was cast into fiberglass. That image was then press molded into the aluminum door panels, and painted. The floor mat is made from Rhino coating, and is enhanced by hand made stainless sills and moldings. Down below, an original Stewart Warner heater houses the fan for the air conditioning and heat, and hides the ignition coil and A/C thermostat. The passenger seat is a Glide unit that was stitched by Z-Best in Lancaster, New York.

Rolling stock is comprised with 14×6 and 15×10 modified Torqu-Thrust wheels. Tires are 165R14 and 285R15, with the all the lettering ground off. The wheels were machined to eliminate the five screw bosses that held the stock caps by master machinist Gary Will. Welder extraordinaire Neil Hopkins was the projects go to guy for the extremely complicated build.

Several facts that come to light are that this truck was totally built in a home garage by Dennis Portka over a 20 year period. Also, since finishing the project, he has logged over 400 miles of near trouble free driving.

Extremely rare in today’s world of mega million pro-built cars, this is one of the few that are truly garage built to this quality. Just don’t ask him to haul your car parts home from the swap meet!